I Have Found the Worst Valentine's Day Gift, And That Gift is Mayonnaise

I have found the worst gift you can give for Valentine's Day, and that gift is mayonnaise.

Listen, there are more dangerous gifts. There are less useful ones. There are more hurtful and selfish ones, too. But there is no present that will immediately separate a person from reality on Valentine's Day quite like receiving a handful of mayo and nothing else.

A machete, for example, is a bad Valentine's Day gift. It fits all of the above criteria. But maybe you have some shrubbery that really needs a trimmin', and what kind of person really wants to trim shrubs?

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The kind of person who is able to do it with a machete, that's who!

(Plus, your neighbors really know who's boss after that one.)

There is nothing more disconcerting than receiving mayonnaise for Valentine's Day without explanation. Nothing.

A man who purchases mayonnaise as a Valentine's Day gift has gone to the supermarket, he has picked up an industrial-sized tub of mayonnaise, he has said to himself, "Yep, seems about right," he has now twice walked past countless better gifts, he has paid for this mayonnaise with American money, he has brought it home to another human being as a token of appreciation, and he has never once thought to himself, "Wait, is this a totally fking bananas thing to do?"

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Your girlfriend knows there are only two things that can happen one hour after she is presented with only mayonnaise on Valentine's Day. One hour later, there is either a Lexus in the driveway with a bow and her name on it or, one hour later, the rest of her life can be best summed up in the first three minutes of a Law & Order episode.

It is impossible to imagine a third scenario.

Even gifts that seem wackadoodle levels of disgusting — like, say, Vaseline, edible underwear, or a bucket of insects — only point to unordinary and/or gross psychosexual proclivities. Receiving any of these things probably just means your boyfriend is into some weird shit, and he's taking the wrong cues from all of those Marilyn Manson albums you forgot to take off of your iPod.

And if it's anything worse than that, she would know to call the cops and let the 270-year prison sentence serve as a break-up talk.

Mayonnaise, though? You cannot call 9-1-1 for mayonnaise-related grievances. You should be able to, but you cannot.

Your Valentine's Day, instead, has just become Hell(man's) on Earth.

Maybe you're one of those guys who thinks his girlfriend has the best sense of humor in the world and really wants to test it out before he takes the next step. (Hot Esquire tip: Don't fking do this.)

Maybe you want to give her the worst gift imaginable just to see what happens.

Here's the plan: Save your real gift for 48 hours from now. At about noon, give her the gift of mayonnaise.

Smile. If asked why you got this gift for her, do not make up a story. Do not tell her it is a tradition in your family, or that it is ceremonial, or that it is otherwise special to you.

Say nothing but superlatives for the mayonnaise. "This is really nice mayonnaise," you say. "It's the best mayonnaise they had.

"This jar — very sturdy."

What happens to a person when 48 hours pass and, still, the only gift she has received from her significant other — someone she believed she knew and loved, respected and cared for, even through what she believed to be his darkest days — remains a year's supply of Costco mayo neatly wrapped in a bouquet of colorful tissue paper?

What happens, at best, is a lot of phone calls to places with CAT scan machines.

When you go to present your girlfriend with flowers and drag her to the only place that would take a reservation tonight, take a deep breath. You won. You did not buy her mayonnaise.